Welcome to Windows 7 Forums. Our forum is dedicated to helping you find support and solutions for any problems regarding your Windows 7 PC be it Dell, HP, Acer, Asus or a custom build. We also provide an extensive Windows 7 tutorial section that covers a wide range of tips and tricks.

Leon478 welcome to SF,
Absolutely you can. I might recommend a new SSD though and a back up drive. On my work lappy I run a 256gb SSD and then a 1TB usb 3.0 HDD external. Another idea would be to get a large SD card and boot from it to a internal spinner. Lots of options but your idea is correct but you will need to change the boot order in your bios.

Agreed, even replacing the internal SSD with a regular HD internally is a better option. A lot of external hard drives are just enclosures for a regular laptop hard drive. If money is a concern, you could break open the external HD and take out the laptop drive in there and throw that in the computer.

Thanks to everyone for your help, it is my first post and I am amazed how quickly help was given
Linneymayerhere- thanks,I don't have provision for a sd card money is tight at mo so buying a new ssd is not an option
Mitchell65- when I try to reinstall windows error 0x0300024 appears
Jshinevar- The notebook will only accept an ssd

Earlier I asked "Also how old is this laptop?" Can you reply please?
I don't think that receiving that error message indicates that the SSD has died. My take on that is that the partition on the disc is not set to active!
Although you have not fully complated your System Specs my research suggests that your Notebook is getting a little old. According to the Dell site it originally came with Windows XP pre installed. Does the Dell sticker on your machine confirm this? That being so are you sure that the Notebook will run Windows 7? Also you might have a corrupted installation media. Is this a USB stick as I can't see that you have a DVD drive?
Where did your copy of Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit come from?

Using a external hdd insted of internal ssd

External HDD to Internal HDDhey guys I have 2 external HDD full of my video work files, I probably know the answer but I would like to know for sure, that if I take them out of there casings and put them into my PC, would my files be affected?

Hardware & Devices

Internal and external mic problemsI'm a pc gamer and I'm currently stuck with a Sony Vaio laptop because of money problems.
For some reason, when in teamspeak 3, raidcall, or ventrillo while doing anything slightly graphic intensive (like play any video game or surf the internet) my audio input starts to sound crazy. My friends...

Sound & Audio

Internal or external TV Turner - is one better than the other?Is there a difference in the performance, options or anything between internal or external TV tuners? I just need to be able to record two things at once, other feature I'm unsure of. External would be much better and easier on me. I assume both type come with remote controls, DVR software, etc.?
...

Media Center

External to internal HDDGreetings all,
Recently my 500GB external HDD stopped working. the power supply in the case stopped working.I took it out of the case and I've now got it hooked up via SATA as an internal HDD. Working fine but I keep getting SMART errors and warnings that the HDD is about to collapse.
At the...

Hardware & Devices

External vs Internal HDD?I was wondering, because i believe that ALL external hard drives have an internal in them with a board/adapter to use usb. But i am wondering, is the hard drives in them are exactly the same as a internal without the adapter? Meaning, if i shell out the external and i get the hard drive in it, is...

General Discussion

External Vs Internal HDD for back up?Does an external HDD have any benefits over an extra internal HDD for backing up data?
I think if the truth be known that an internal HDD providing it's not a partition of the primary HDD would be the best but is this correct?
I was thinking about having as well as my 500GB HDD that has a...